Long Weekend

The HUGE news is the arrival of Ela Mckinney Estavanovich on May 27th at 540 pm.... please follow the David and Gianni link to see la preciosura de esa ninha. Congratulations guys! This was a long weekend, 3 days, and I took a 4th day and kept the kids out of school to commemorate the ascencion of Baha'u'llah. The boys and I are having a mellow morning after a couple of fantastic days. We are getting ready to go meet the Brandon's at look park. Sadly they are moving away to Hartford and even though that is only 35 min or so farther away it will still make them less accessible than the 20 min they are now. booo hooo.... Which sort of leads into a joke the kids are telling everyone now. What makes the following sound: Boooo hooooooo splat splat??? Some one crying their eyes out. Ha ha... oh well. We have been outside swimming, biking, hiking, playing baseball, catching snakes, throwing rocks, runnning, kayaking, learning to hulahoop, giggling, telling jokes, and getting sunburned all weekend. Dad came drove up saturday afternoon while we were at the resevoir with uncle Steve. It was a buggy hike but well worth the effort for the swim in crystal clear water that we had not to mention all the frogs, snakes, salamanders, and other creatures that we found and caught. A mellow evening with Dad and then off for a picnic at the mill river park where we enjoyed the sun, warmth and games (also where Aman caught his first two snakes!!!). Monday, Britt and the boys and I went for an 18 mile bike ride and then went to a friend's house for a cook out. It was hard to get out of bed this morning but... here we are ... the boys are taking it easy and I need to clean the kitchen and get us out the door fully packed and ready for anything to meet the Brandons.

Couldn't Wait

We really couldn’t… it was one of those mornings where everyone is just getting on each other’s nerves and the whole house is raw… three days of cold rain… Britt and I thought it would be a good Sunday to set up the kid’s rooms… give them each their own room… but man did that ever turn out to be a whole boatload of work!!! We thought we’d invite some of the boy’s friends over so they could chill together while we did the work… no… no one was getting along at all… so .. finally the sun peaked thru the clouds and we just couldn't wait to vacate the premises. And so was Alf who had to put up with all the furniture moving noise upstairs while he was trying to get some work done…

So we took Aman’s friend Ethan and caught a duck and a nice king snake. A new romp along a river close by… the duckling thought the boys were its mama and would not stop following us. We caught it, ooooohd and aaahhd over it, contemplated taking it home and then let it go at the lake at the end of the river with the rest of its siblings who we found swimming around…. Swimming around presenting themselves as potential snake meals for the two snakes we saw one of which we caught. Never a dull moment in the Alschuler-Ruhe household.

A Few Random Blurps

I will start out with a few recent Aman quotes: He comes down in the morning on a school day with a button-up shirt on and shorts. The shirt is buttoned up all the way to the top and tight and Britt asks, "Hey, how come you have your shirt buttoned up all the way?". He looks at her then proceeds to unbutton the shirt a few buttons and then points to his bare chest and says, "See that? That! is chest skin. I don't like anyone seeing my chest skin!" He then buttons up again and runs off to school. The other one what about him playing with this tiny flashlight and he asks, "Daddy can I look in your ear?", and I'm like, "sure"... so he sticks the flashlight in there and looks around for a long time. When he finishes he is all quiet. So I said, "So... what does it look like?" and he replied, "Just like a skatepark but with lots of hair!" Things have mellowed out a bit. Work isn't so crazy at the moment. I am working some other projects that are not quite as chaotic... but it's only a small pause in activities from the other project that is about to heat up next week probably. I biked to work on thursday... a mellow 35 minutes. I am going to try to do that more often. Britt worked like crazy to open the gym which happened on monday only to have an issue set her back a week or so in having the grand opening celebration with the big wigs and the press. Send some good thoughts her way... The boys had their Baha'i school graduation last weekend (the pic of us making faces). It was a nice ceremony to acknowledge their hard work this year and thank the teachers for the effort put towards preparing and executing the classes all year. We will break for the summer. The few picture of a water here are of Puffer's Pond here in Amherst. Isaiah and I biked there two thursday's ago went swimming and then biked to Aman's friends house to pick up Aman. We took full advantage of Alfie and Ericka's latest experiment in bike riding, half a bike attached to another. Very useful and they can contribute to the pedaling. The fair was also in town last weekend. Same as any other fair... fun, loud, expensive.. I rode this thing called the strawberry that just went round and round and I thought I was going to hurl but kept it down... barely. We all road the big boat thingy that goes back and forth... there's a before pic here... Alfie and I went to see Spiderman3 but it was sold out. So we went to see Next with Nicolas Cage... it is a must see... we really enjoyed the concept and the story... and don't pay to go see Spiderman... what a waste... Britt and I saw it later and fell asleep in it... it is amazing how popular things can be even if they are bad as long as they are hyped enough.... que fome. The last weird pic is of the boys holding some knives I carved for them while on a nice Mother's Day hike last sunday. We celebrated the three mother's with us but also all the rest of you awesome mother's out there by hiking along a beautiful river close by...

Feliz Birthday Sis

Today is Jaleh's birthday. She completed another elliptical trip around the sun today. We are sending you lots of love and wishes for another 942477796 miles. The boys were excited that it was TTs birthday and made some nice notes for her which I include here.

Growing and Flowing

Last Sunday the Baha’i School hosted the 9^th day of Ridvan celebration. We had a nice hall in the Nielson Library at Smith College (close to the hall where the children’s classes are every week). Each age group brought something to share. Our group, the young ones, made a huge poster in which we used cut out pictures from magazines to answer three questions that the kids came up with about God. What does God love? Is God powerful? And is God gentle? Isaiah’s group dressed up and read some parts of the story of what happened that day in Baghdad as Baha’u’llah was saying goodbye to everyone. (which reminds me, our friend Druzelle Cederquist wrote a great piece for the Religion and Spirituality section at the UPI website On_the_Banks_of_the_Tigris about the contrast with what is happening now in Baghdad and what happened 144 years ago when Baha’u’llah was in that garden…) Back to the presentation… Isaiah stood up and clearly read a nice long section. It was awesome to watch.

I include more spring pictures. Having the smells and moisture in the air is intoxicating. We are eating our meals outside, shooting baskets, having water fights, throwing our kids in the air… you know typical stuff.

During quiet time a lot of the times Amán will choose to draw and Isaiah of course is still devouring this series called Spiderwick. Everyone is growing up and moving along… growing and flowing.

In other news, David and Ali jumped off a bridge in Costa Rica (bungee)… serious freaks… Aria and James are trying to sell their house in NM so they can move forward with their move out this way to Boston… and of course the huuuuuuugggggge news is that Xinxin has finally arrived and is settling in with her sexy hubby uncle Salad in LA… welcome Xinxin!!! We can’t wait to see you in a month or so… Junio verdad? Other news? Gianni and David are close to finding out if they have an Ela or a Tristen… (we can’t wait guys!!! And Gianni I still can’t believe you let him jump off a bridge!!!).

Primavera/Spring

You can see from some of the recently posted pictures that spring is rolling in around here. What a magical time. Flowers, leaves, grass, sun, smells, moisture. I have been working 2nd shift (2-11pm) a lot lately and have had some nice time to myself in the mornings after getting the boys off on the school bus. Today I went for my solo first bike ride of the year. 17 miles or so mainly on asphalt but some serendipitous downhill trail runs just happened to jump in along the way. Here's the run I did today. I found some more meanings for the name Aman today: trustworthy, safe, peace, protection without fear... Both of these guys are really growing quickly. Britt and I are so lucky to have these two wonderful boys as part of our lives... Here's an old pic of them on our bed in Costa Rica from a few years ago...